Current location in this text. Enter a Perseus citation to go to another section or work. Full search
options are on the right side and top of the page.

Introduction

Beazley called the Kleophrades Painter the greatest pot-painter of the Late Archaic
period, giving him precedence over his contemporary, the Berlin Painter, an artist whose
best works are among the masterpieces of Attic vase-painting.1 The two painters are frequently compared and discussed in tandem, but although
they shared a common background and were close in their early careers, they possessed
different temperaments and developed markedly different styles. Of the Kleophrades
Painter, Beazley remarked that "he may be said to play a kind of Florentine to the Berlin
Painter's Sienese."2 Although this statement says as much about Beazley as it does the Kleophrades
Painter, there can be no doubt what he meant. He was a painter of power, whose vital,
robust figures, whether naked, armored, or swathed in luxurious drapery, are imbued with
intelligence and will. The firm lines and clear compositions of his paintings were founded
on careful designs, worked out in extensive preliminary sketches.3 In his earliest works, from the last decade of the sixth century, the influence of
Euthymides is strong, and there can be no doubt that the Kleophrades Painter trained under
him in the Pioneer workshop, where he would also have been exposed to the works of
Phintias and Euphronios. The Berlin Painter had a similar training, though he was perhaps
closer to Phintias than to Euthymides, whose influence on the Kleophrades Painter is so
great that Beazley originally attributed to the older painter some works he later assigned
to the pupil.4 His career lasted over thirty years, ending in the late 470s, before the Berlin
Painter's latest works, which are so poor that one is thankful the Kleophrades Painter
quit when he did.

3
For example, the satyr holding a shield on the neck-amphora Harrow 55 (ARV2, 183,
11) was originally sketched holding a cuirass; see P. E. Corbett,
"Preliminary Sketch in Greek Vase-Painting," JHS 85 (1965) 16-28
(Harrow amphora: pls. IIb and III). On another amphora of this type, Villa Giulia 47836
(ARV2, 184, 18), the youth on the obverse was sketched holding a hare
for the boy on the reverse, but the gift was omitted in the final drawing.